Newspaper sellers wait for a bus in Yangon, Myanmar, on the fist day privately run daily newspapers hit the streets since the late dictator Ne Win imposed a state monopoly on the daily press in the 1960s. Photo: AP

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There are many who scoff at Andrew Cuomo’s chances in a presidential primary campaign, but I am not among them. His name is an iconic Democratic brand, he’s forceful on the stump and a prodigious fund-raiser. Besides, somebody has to win the nomination.

Of course, there are hurdles. Saint Hillary is gearing up to run, and there will be a scrum among contenders, probably including Vice President Joe Biden, competing just to be Clinton’s top rival.

The scenario, then, is daunting but doable — or at least it was, until federal prosecutor Preet Bharara dropped a big fat scandal bomb on Cuomo’s head.

Even before the smoke clears, it is certain that the sordid revelations damaged Cuomo’s presidential quest. You can’t become president, or even a nominee, if you are tagged with presiding over America’s capital of corruption.

Opponents’ ads write themselves: Snippets of blaring newspaper headlines, a parade of perps and Bharara’s voice denouncing Albany’s “show-me-the-money culture” and asking “How many passed bills were born of bribery?”

Other cases may yet appear, but even if they don’t, Bharara’s closing blast, which could have been aimed at the governor himself, could seal his fate: “No one blew the whistle. No one sounded the alarm. Rather, too many people looked the other way.”

The sensational cases destroy what had been a clever plan for 2016. Cuomo, swept into office during the Tea Party surge of 2010, spent his first year echoing the call for lower taxes and smaller government. He produced a balanced, on-time budget that included spending restraint and property-tax caps.

He then tacked left in 2012, championing gay marriage, imposing a tax hike he vowed he wouldn’t and pandering to environmentalists by offering one reason after another for delaying fracking. Getting the nation’s first tough gun-control legislation passed after the Newtown horror and pushing for virtually unlimited abortions cemented his return to the liberal fold.

From a national perspective, he could assume the record of zigs and zags would fade into the big picture of a governor with genuine appeal to both the Democratic base for the primary and some moderates for a general election. An easy re-election next year would be the kickoff for 2016.

Then came the Bharara bomb. While the sleazy legislators did the alleged crimes, Cuomo is not an innocent victim. He has only himself to blame for setting the wrong ethical tone.

He knew Albany was rotten, saying early on that corruption exceeded that of the notorious Tammany machine and “would make Boss Tweed blush.” Yet Cuomo repeatedly backed down from promised reforms, trading them for agreement on budget and policy issues. In one giddy moment, he bizarrely declared that New York “has the best legislative body in the nation.” That quote alone would make a great ad for an opponent.

Worse, the turnabout wasn’t just rhetorical. The governor initially pushed tort reform, saying it would save millions on Medicaid expenses by limiting payouts on malpractice cases involving infants. But he caved in the face of resistance from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and then-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos — both of whom earned fees from tort-law firms.

An ethics bill that followed allowed Silver, Skelos and other lawmakers to avoid immediate, clear disclosure of their outside incomes and clients. The bill also gave each party veto power over investigations.

To seal his capitulation, Cuomo dropped his demand for an independent redistricting commission, allowing legislators to draw district lines that favored themselves.

While none of this is to suggest the governor approved of unethical or illegal behavior, the taped conversations prosecutors released last week show the price of his absence. Not once do any of the three charged legislators, all Democrats, mention Cuomo or his ethics cops. At best, the governor made no impact on public integrity among New York’s native criminal class.

His absence continued after the revelations. Except for a few platitudes, Cuomo was silent.

Perhaps he’s plotting a big response, something like the Moreland Act he threatened to invoke before taking office. With his signature, he could create a panel, armed with subpoena power, to turn over every rock in the Legislature.

But Cuomo wouldn’t find it easy in his third year to escape responsibility for whatever slime oozes out. And in terms of a presidential campaign, it’s already too late to do what he should have done first.

Still, Cuomo is likely to be governor for six more years and he owes New Yorkers a government they can trust. That’s what he promised and that’s what he must finally deliver.

Might as well call Times the First Lady

Deconstructing the Obama propaganda in a recent front page New York Times story was like peeling an onion. Discarding each layer brought you closer to the distasteful core.

To start, the top headline was pure misdirection.

“Social Programs Facing A Cutback in Obama Budget,” it declared. Before you could nod approval, the caveat came in a subhead: “Smaller Increase Seen.”

Oh. In other words, the cuts weren’t real cuts — just reductions in the rate of growth. It’s a liberal trick, and the Times is expert at turning liberal tricks.

Damn the facts, the article itself also credited Obama with taking “a political risk” by proposing “cuts” to Social Security and Medicare. How brave! How noble!

Not really. The article noted that Obama had tied his “cuts” to another round of tax hikes Republicans already had rejected. That led the paper to peel away another layer.

“If Republicans continue to resist the president, the White House believes that most Americans will blame them for the fiscal paralysis,” the article said.

There you have it — Obama’s cuts are not really cuts, his budget is not really a budget and his offer is not really an offer. It’s all smoke and mirrors to disguise his never-ending push for tax hikes. When it fails, blame is already baked into the plan.

Actually, there is a final layer, one the Times doesn’t mention. Obama hopes the blame game will help Democrats retake the House in next year’s midterm elections.

As he told a San Francisco fund-raiser recently, “It would be a whole lot easier to govern if I had Nancy Pelosi as speaker.”

He means “easier” the way his first two years were, with one-party rule. That was so much fun, the nation still has a hangover.

Albany crooks can prepay the piper

Reader Jeff Durstewitz offers a modest proposal to deter political crooks: “How about they have to post a $100,000 bond before running for office? It would be a presumption of guilt, but it would be justified.”

Hill to climb

In 2009, at the start of the Obama administration, a plugged-in friend predicted this: “Hillary will do four years as secretary of state, resign, write a book and get ready to run for president.”

The first two steps happened like clock-work, and last week she signed a book deal. Hmmm, wonder what she’ll do next.

Obese eat it

Chew this one over. Mayor Bloomberg, in a speech about abuse of prescription drugs, mentioned a startling fact from the World Health Organization: For the first time in human history, more people die from obesity than hunger and starvation.